The Orioles Are Busy
But not in a good way if you’re a Baltimore fan. According to Phil Rogers of the Chicago Tribune, the Cubs are closing in on a deal for Baltimore second baseman Brian Roberts. That’s not, though. According to Fox Sports’ Ken Rosenthal, the Orioles and Mariners are only one player apart from agreeing on an Erik Bedard trade.
That, ladies and gentlemen, is how you gut a baseball team! If both deals are consummated, GM Andy MacPhail will have dealt the Orioles’ ace and double play combination in just one winter. Not that MacPhail’s doing the wrong thing here. Baltimore needs a fresh start after years of futility and quick fixes and the impressive haul for Roberts and Bedard, which includes Adam Jones, Carlos Triunfel, Sean Marshall and Ronny Cedeno, will make the team better in the long run.
In the short run, though, the Orioles might just have the worst team in the American League. Their only competition for the “title” — congratulations Royals fans — appears to be the Oakland A’s, who are also at the beginning of a long-term rebuilding project. So who’s actually worse? Let’s go to the numbers — namely runs created and ERA, calculated via the Bill James 2008 projections.
It turns out, it’s not even particularly close. The Orioles look like the far, far worse team, probably because the A’s are at least holding onto much of their infield as well as a deep and strong bullpen. Here’s a look at the raw data (click on the table to view in a new window):
There are obviously a couple of problems.
- The A’s aren’t actually going to outscore their opponents. There are a lot of innings unaccounted for because once they trade Blanton, there will only be three returning starters from the season before.
- Adam Jones’ projection seems extremely conservative, and I’d expect him to outperform it vastly if given a full season of at-bats, especially in hitter-friendly Camden Yards.
Still, if the Orioles trade Bedard, who was one of the five best pitchers in the AL last year, and Roberts, they’re well on their way to a 100-loss season, especially in the rough-and-tumble AL East. The A’s will be merely bad next season, Baltimore could be on its way to one of the darkest seasons in franchise history.
Please note there were no projections for Dan Meyer, Jerry Blevins, Dana Eveland, Adam Loewen, Radhames Liz, Ronny Cedeno, Scott Moore or Freddie Bynum, so I used last year’s RC total. Also the RAA totals are not listed in James’ projections so I instead used ERA. In addition, I assumed that Joe Blanton would be dealt by the A’s. This is a very, very rough projection, with some corners cut due to incomplete data.
January 10th, 2008 at 9:17 pm
Interesting stuff. I’ll be interested to see if one or both of these trades end up going through. The Orioles really do need to start planning long-term though, and this could be the start—as painful as it would be in the short-term.